Advanced Geospatial Analysis (Winter 2025)

Alex Bevington alex.bevington@unbc.ca

Location and hours

Tuesdays
5:30-6:20 PM – Lecture (8-129)
6:30-7:20 PM – Office Hours (8-129)

Thursdays
5:30-6:20 PM – Lecture (8-129)
6:30-9:30 PM – Lab (GIS Lab 8-125)

Course Overview

Students work with and analyze large geospatial and remotely-sensed datasets, learning and using advanced Python, R, and SQL programming. In addition to laboratory exercises, students participate in a weekly seminar to critically evaluate research on geospatial algorithms and analyses. Students work together to use geospatial analyses to solve a problem relevant to non-academic stakeholders.

Undergraduate/graduate students

This is a split course. Requirements for this course will be higher for graduate students.

Grading

• Labs (50%)
• Participation (10%)
• Midterm exam (5%)
• Final exam (10%)
• Final project (25%)

Required Accounts

• Github https://github.com/
• Google Earth Engine https://code.earthengine.google.com/

Schedule

Week 1
Jan 7 Introduction
Jan 9 Geospatial data
Lab 1: Digitizing data (due on Jan 16)
– listen to podcast by Jan 14 https://mapscaping.com/podcast/ai-autocomplete-for-qgis/
– read paper by Jan 16 https://www.mdpi.com/2220-9964/9/2/90

Week 2
Jan 14 Programming and reproducible workflows  
Jan 16 Geospatial programming (Vector)
Lab 2: On L: Drive (due on Jan 23)
– read paper by Jan 23 https://confluence-jwsm.ca/index.php/jwsm/article/view/18/5

Week 3
Jan 21 Geospatial programming (Raster) code
Jan 23 Cloud computing and spatial databases
Lab: Google Earth Engine Demo
– read paper by Jan 30 https://joss.theoj.org/papers/10.21105/joss.02305.pdf

Week 4
Jan 28 Guest lecture (Sasha Nassonova – BC Gov) — online
Jan 30 Presentation in class, then UNBC Career Night — in person
Lab 3: On L: Drive (due on Feb 6)
– read paper by Feb 6 https://essd.copernicus.org/articles/17/259/2025/

Week 5
Feb 4 Guest lecture (Hunter Gleason – BC Gov)
Feb 6 Guest lecture (Dan Kovacek – UBC) — online
Lab: On L: Drive (due on Feb 13)

Week 6
Feb 11 Guest lecture (John Goetz – BC Gov) — online
Feb 13 Guest lecture (Axel Grist – BC Gov)
Lab: Mid-term and Lab

Week 7
Feb 18 & 20 READING WEEK

Week 8
Feb 25 Guest lecture (Will Cadell – SparkGeo)
Feb 27 Guest Lecture (Gen Perkins – Ninox Consulting)
Lab: in person

Week 9
Mar 4 Guest lecture (Joe Shea – UNBC)
Mar 6 Guest lecture (Brian Menounos – UNBC)
Lab: in person

Week 10
Mar 11 Guest lecture (Scott Emmonds – Consultant)
Mar 13 Guest lecture (Cole – BC Gov)
Lab: in person

Week 11
Mar 18 Lecture
Mar 20 Review lecture

Week 12
Mar 25 Final project presentations
Mar 27 Final project presentations

Week 13
Apr 1 Exam review
Apr 3 Exam

Apr 10 Project deadline